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They come from all corners of the globe, speak different languages, span the ideological spectrum and range in age from 43 to 80. But what do President Biden and other leaders at the Group of 7 meeting in Japan have in common this weekend? They are not all that popular at home.
For Mr. Biden and his friends from the world’s major industrial powers, this is an era of democratic discontent when voters seem increasingly dissatisfied with the president and prime minister they have elected. Each leader is in hot water for different reasons, but their shared struggles highlight the fragility of a free society at a time of deep political and cultural division.
That made this year’s summit meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, a “quiet heart club,” in the words of a specialist, where unloved leaders can commiserate on domestic issues and trade ideas on how to get back into good graces. his choice. A few days away from home to join friends on the world stage can be a welcome relief for battered leaders, a chance to strut and posture and play the role of statesman shaping historical forces.
But the problem is that they have a way to follow and can limit their choice and influence. Mr. Biden began the morning of the opening day of the three-day meeting on Friday not with a discussion of state affairs but with a half-hour call back to Washington to review negotiations with Republicans on more prosaic but profound matters. consequential problems of spending and debt. He ended the day by leaving about 90 minutes early from a leadership gala dinner on Miyajima island to call back from home about spending talks.
Suzanne Maloney, director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution, said, “it is an environment in which the leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies must engage with a more challenging world, even if there is still shaky ground at home. This can cause doubt among allies and overconfidence among enemies, and makes us all more vulnerable.
Survey data collected by Morning Consult recently showed that the leaders of only four of the 22 major countries surveyed had an approval rating above 50 percent: India’s Narendra Modi, Switzerland’s Alain Berset, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Australia’s Anthony Albanese . . Mr. Modi, who was in Hiroshima as an observer, is the envy of the city with an approval rating of 78 percent, despite this in a country where religious divisions are exploited for political gain and the prime minister’s political opponents are expelled from Parliament for defamation.
None of the G7 leaders, by contrast, could win majority support. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who was elected only last fall, is the best with an approval rating of 49 percent, according to Morning Consult, followed by Mr. Biden with 42 percent, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada with 39 percent, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany with 34 percent, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak from Britain with 33 percent and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida from Japan with 31 percent. President Emmanuel Macron of France followed the pack with 25 percent.
Mr. Kishida could do better with his cabinet’s approval rating, which scored 52 percent in a recent poll. It was the first time he exceeded 50 percent in eight months, prompting speculation that he may call a snap election to take advantage as he advances. But it’s unclear whether the new polls are the start of a more sustained period of support, or just a blip before another slide.
“My instinct is that the poll numbers are more or less reflective of the growing polarization in some of these societies,” said Michael Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, a Washington-based organization that advocates for democracy around the world. “Biden can open the streets with gold and half the country disagrees. Obviously, democracies have to do a better job, but there is no evidence that authoritarians can do a better job.
Disappointment with the current leadership is proving to be a test of democracy’s staying power at a time when it is under pressure. Mr. Abramowitz’s group, which tracks democracies by country, found that freedoms have retreated around the world for 17 years in a row, amid setbacks in places like Hungary and Poland. While former President Donald J. Trump has called for a “suspension” of the US Constitution to return to power, Mr Biden has often said he sees his mission as defending democracy.
Amidst the general acidity, each leader faces a different problem. Mr. Macron, who won re-election only last year with 58.5 percent of the vote, saw his support plummet when he pushed through an increase in the retirement age to 64 from 62, touching off violent street protests. A poll released this month found that Mr Macron would lose to Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader he defeated last year.
Likewise, if elections were held today, recent surveys show that Mr. Sunak’s Conservative Party would lose to the Labor Party in Britain, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party would lose to the Conservative Party in Canada, and Mr. Scholz’s Social Democratic Party would lose to the Christian Democratic Union in Germany. .
Some political veterans attribute the weakness of the G7 leaders to economic worries in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. “There seems to be a wave of discontent sweeping our democracy,” said Carl Bildt, Sweden’s former prime minister. “I think the return from inflation, it’s been a long time, may have something to do with it.”
Inflation has certainly eroded support for Mr. Biden, along with the crisis on the southwestern border, fears of urban crime, anger over government spending and worries about the president’s age as he asks voters to give him a second term to keep him in power. it is 86.
The best thing Mr. Biden has going for politics today is the possibility that he could face Mr. Trump again next year, a rematch that strategists think will galvanize Democrats and independents who are not enthusiastic about the president but cannot be denied. to the former president. Even so, according to polls, it is not certain that the president can defeat his predecessor twice, and Mr. Biden’s friends in Japan are very worried about Trump’s return to power, considering him a disruptive, even dangerous force. .
This is not the first time the Group of 7 has come together with underwater leaders with domestic politics. But John J. Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto and a longtime student of the bloc, said such fallow periods typically occur when the leaders’ home countries suffer severe recession or stagflation, which is not the case. now.
“At a time when the polls are low, the G7 summit becomes a quiet heart club, when the leaders share their political pain, communicate with each other because of it, and discuss what they are doing in each country to achieve and perhaps get them back on track ,” said Mr. Kirton. “This is one of the ways that the summit serves as a committee to re-elect leaders who are at home.”
But Mr Abramowitz said the political problems of the G7 leaders should be seen as proof that democracy can work. “Unlike authoritarian leaders, if democratic leaders don’t get the job done, they will be elected,” he said. “Accountability is democracy’s strength, not its weakness.”
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